


In Which Primus Loves Steve (And Soundwave Is Stuck Playing Cupid)

by Kemmasandi



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Matchmaking, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Other, Spark Sex, Sticky Sex, kinkmeme fill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 12:09:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kemmasandi/pseuds/Kemmasandi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megatron has hit upon yet another strange scheme. He now wants Soundwave and Starscream to interface and produce a sparkling, because a mech with their combined talents would serve him well.</p><p>Soundwave Does Not Want.</p><p>But, perhaps, there is someone who might fill in adequately...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Soundwave is delegated a task.

**Author's Note:**

> ** >> **A kinkmeme fill for [this prompt here](http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/11776.html?thread=12178432#t12178432)
> 
> Posting here in the hopes that maybe it'll get my butt into gear with writing the rest of it? XD;;

Soundwave was working. 

On a good day, this involved little more than plugging himself into the specially-modified console in the _Nemesis’_ security hub and browsing the security feeds from around the ship dozen by dozen, watching out for anything which might cause problems. He had Laserbeak deployed and was watching through her optics on another channel as she swooped silently through the corridors, somewhere down on the lower levels. The drones made up most of his view, chatting quietly amongst themselves and occasionally flinching for cover when they caught sight of Laserbeak. Knock Out was in the medbay, Breakdown was in the rec room, and Lord Megatron was striding through the corridors, sharp teeth bared in a satisfied smirk. All as it should be.

On a bad day, it involved Starscream.

There were twice as many cameras in Starscream’s quarters as there were in any other single suite on the ship. In theory, this meant that as soon as Starscream started work on one of his plots, Soundwave would have a front-row seat to the planning stages and therefore plenty of warning to sabotage the Seeker’s efforts.

In practice, it meant that Soundwave merely had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Starscream’s various kinks and interfacing preferences. The Seeker seemed to do everything on his berth but recharge.

Currently, Starscream was sitting within view of three separate cameras on the edge of his berth, his long thin face twisted in snarled ill-temper, muttering to himself. Soundwave’s bugs, even super-sensitive as they were, didn’t have to strain their audial receivers in the slightest to pick up the Seeker’s words. For the moment, they were fairly tame—a viciously sarcastic monologue against organic planets and the Pit-slagging vermin which infested them. Soundwave suspected the Seeker had suffered another birdstrike incident, judging by the black char that occasionally drifted out of his lazily spinning turbines.

The hub door swished open, drawing him out of the feeds. Megatron’s distinctive EM field flowed in ahead of the warlord, coloured with rank approval. Soundwave hadn't realised he was so close.

“After dealing with the rest of the incompetents on this ship, Soundwave, it is a pleasure to see your dedication to your work,” the warlord announced, a single long stride taking him to the centre of the room. 

Soundwave straightened, sending an affirmative ping as he turned to face his Lord. Most mechs would have regarded the simple VHF note as cursory, rude at best, but they had been allies for a long time, and Megatron knew the value of Soundwave’s respect. 

“I have a task for you,” Megatron began without preamble. “Yourself and Starscream are my two highest officers, my talented Air Commander and my loyal executive officer. You each have your skills which make you invaluable to the Decepticon cause, although granted in Starscream’s case this is offset by his unfortunate personality. I could do with more soldiers like you.”

Unlike Starscream, Soundwave neither liked nor needed flattery. Megatron knew this. Soundwave held himself still and silent, trusting Megatron to explain what he had in mind.

“Unfortunately, at this stage we only have the one way to create more soldiers. Sparklings.” He nodded sharply, denta bared in his usual grin. “To that end, Soundwave, I require you find a way to present yourself as a suitor to our Air Commander. Your combined talents would do the Decepticon cause proud.”

Soundwave managed not to let any of his shock show, but it was a close-run thing.

Sparklings? On the Nemesis? 

_His_ sparklings? With Starscream of all mechs? 

He felt his spark clench, suddenly uncomfortable under Megatron’s expectant red gaze. Soundwave had learnt to read the mechs around him a very long time ago; his ability to predict what was going to be thrown at him and who by was what had kept him alive for this long. Yet Megatron had completely blindsided him with this order—he’d never even considered the possibility of raising sparklings to wage war. Preprograms, the drones, were one thing, but sparklings—they took a long time to mature to a useful level, and until them took up resources and their caretakers’ time. He had neither the energy nor materials with which to raise so much as one.

Even less with Starscream, with whom he had been fighting a silent cold war with for as long as the Seeker had been with the Decepticon army.

Starscream hated him. Soundwave would not have put it past Starscream to agree to such an order, simply to see him squirm. 

Not that he _would_ squirm—Soundwave had better self-control than that, and he would do anything Lord Megatron truly required of him—but they would both see him _wanting_ to. 

A flare of impatience flashed through Megatron’s EM field. Soundwave abruptly realised he hadn’t yet recognized the order. He hurriedly sent a ping of confirmation. // _Acknowledged, Lord Megatron_. //

The irritation in Megatron’s field eased off, and he cocked his helm at Soundwave, curious now rather than affronted. “Do you have something to say, Soundwave? You are seldom so slow to reply.”

He paused, wondering what he could say. Any personal objection was out of the question—Megatron had no patience for it. Neither did Soundwave himself, under most circumstances. 

Starscream’s character, luckily, lent itself well to misgivings. // _Consideration: Starscream, unlikely to react well to this. Likely response, refusal to co-operate at best._ //

Megatron smirked ironically. “Surely you’re not suggesting our prized Air Commander would let his personal agenda get in the way of the advancement of the Decepticon cause, Soundwave?”

Soundwave let his flat silence speak for itself.

The warlord gave a low laugh, optics flashing in amusement. “Never one for a joke, hmm? Nevertheless, your point is valid. I would suggest, then, that you simply do not _tell_ him.”

// _Secrecy, required of all parties?_ // That could be a boon. Soundwave forced away the crawling feeling in the back of his mind with difficulty, forcibly rerouting processor threads to consider the order.

Megatron nodded. “It would be best to keep this between ourselves for the moment. Organise it as you see fit.”

With that, the warlord turned on his heel and left. 

Starscream was still muttering away in blissful oblivion when Soundwave turned back to the console, although now his voice had dropped to a near-whisper, the scowl melting from his face as he traced a clawtip along the transformation seam on his inner thigh. 

Seekers. That wasn’t the crux of the problem, although it did make up a large part of it. 

Seekers were the problem children of the aerial-build family, embodying all the best physical traits of their sister frame-types—and, to make a sweeping generalization, all their worst personality traits. They had the agility and speed of the light jets, as well as the lightning-fast minds and unfortunate tendency to not quite think things through. A warframe, they had all the typical pride and will to fight, alongside the mental endurance and aloof personalities common to shuttles; the multi-track processors and demanding perfectionism of satellites, the contrariness of triplechangers and the bloodyminded willpower of heavy jets.

Soundwave, who had been reformatted early in the war, was still a dexter at spark—patient, methodical and exacting. To use the local refrain, Seekers and dexters mixed like cats and dogs.

But all that paled into insignificance next to the fact that it was _Starscream._ Starscream, who was considered a shining example of the Seeker frame and therefore exhibited all of the above traits and more. Starscream, who spent so much of his energy on his own self-serving agenda that it was a miracle he’d managed to prove himself of enough use to retain the post of Megatron’s Second for as long as he had. 

Starscream, who styled himself ‘Lord’ when he thought Soundwave wasn’t watching.

Soundwave just did not like Starscream.

He didn’t hate Starscream, because ‘hate’ implied at least a little bit of passion, as Megatron demonstrated every time he and the Prime clashed on the battlefield. Hate could be twisted—if Soundwave had merely hated Starscream, he could have been contented by the opportunity to beat the wayward Seeker down to size, to assert his superiority in ways every single Decepticon would understand. Starscream might have been the undisputed master of the skies, but Soundwave was the one with gladiatorial experience.

As it was, he didn’t plan to touch the Seeker with a twenty-foot pole if he could help it. It churned in his fuel tanks to disobey his Lord—he’d be no better than Starscream at this rate—but among his other reservations, the plan just didn’t seem to make _sense._

Sparklings kindled the old way were impossible to engineer in the way that a preprogrammed frame could be. It was one of the reasons sparking new mechs via the Allspark had become so mainstream during the Golden Age – one simply built a frame that suited the occupation the new mech was intended to take up, then called a spark into being which would in turn suit the frame to its fullest potential. 

Kindlemechs, on the other hand, were a product of nurture rather than nature. They developed as they grew, influenced by their surroundings no matter how rigid and unbending their spark, and no processor yet built had ever come up with a surefire way of molding such impressionable minds into a specific shape.

That could possibly work in his favour, he realised. Just as it would be impossible to ensure that a sparkling of Soundwave’s would have his loyalty and aptitude, so would it be that a sparkling completely unrelated to him would not.

Kindling them, however, required a very specific set of conditions on the part of the parent mechs. Soundwave had known a few carriers; the information was all there in his archives. Both parent mechs had to be in good health, with stable sparks and largely unstressed by injury or danger. At least one had to be within the peak of their synchronicity cycle – in heat, as they said, his coding and spark primed for generating new life. They had to trust and desire each other enough to simultaneously connect via hardline and merge sparks, allowing the data and energy exchange which would spin up the blueprints for the mechling’s frame and kindle its spark from the combined energies of its parents. 

Soundwave neither trusted nor desired Starscream. The Seeker had ulterior motive enough that even within the throes of heat he wouldn’t trust Starscream to be looking out for anything but his own gain. 

The control room door slid open with a mechanical thunk, and a trio of Eradicons entered, laughing and joking amongst themselves. They pulled up short when they noticed Soundwave, vocalizers shutting off so quickly they buzzed embarrassingly with static.

“Uh, reporting for duty, sir!” one said, straightening up and saluting clumsily. The others echoed him, fields flickering with uncertainty. Soundwave gazed at them for a long moment, perfectly aware that it made them even more uncomfortable than an official reprimand would. 

The drones had their own culture, of a sort, far removed from the web of backstabbing and manipulation which tied together the command structure. Soundwave had been studying them for vorns, using it to improve the army’s efficiency on-field and off. It involved mostly simple machinations, such as not assigning deadly enemies to the same work shifts. He didn’t know every single one of them by sight, but there were a few who, whether by accident or intent, rotated in and out of the social spotlight with greater regularity than the others.

No, Soundwave neither trusted nor desired Starscream. But, perhaps, there was someone who did.

He turned back to his work, ignoring the flicker of weak relief that danced through all three Eradicons’ fields. Linking his free connector into the console’s hardline port, he simultaneously pulled up the Nemesis’ crew roster and hacked into Knock Out’s medical database. Once, this would have been a fearsome task; medical records in the Golden Age had been some of the most private files a mech might see in his lifetime, jealously guarded by state-of-the-art firewalls and security software. Like everything else, this security had suffered in the war. Soundwave broke through in less than half a breem, where it might once have taken him up to a joor.

The medic kept his files relatively organised, which made it the work of a nanoklik to retrieve Starscream’s files from the officers’ subfolder and copy them to his temporary libraries. They were considerably bulkier than most of the other officers’ records, the result of his high-risk occupation as Megatron’s resident scapegoat. Soundwave browsed through them until he found the results of the Seeker’s most recent checkup.

_Substructure integrity: fair_  
>> upper left femoral strut compromised, self-repair systems mobilised  
>> left arm replacement integrating, electrical systems operating 98%, hydraulic systems fully operational  
OS capacity: 73%  
Spark output [cycled]: 60%  
Spark stability: core rate .067 nanokliks, prime-wave frequency 0.72 nanokliks, thermospheric rate .079 nanokliks [pre-heat synchronicity stage 1] 

In all, a surprisingly convenient bill of health. Starscream was likely only a few Earth months away from his next synchronicity peak; hardly any time at all by Cybertronian standards. When it hit, the generative coding would become his first priority; he’d be willing to interface with anyone he found even remotely attractive. 

Satisfied by his findings, Soundwave switched his primary thought processes over to the crew roster. He’d had to go back a few months in the register to find what he was looking for; the drones had adopted names from the infantile television programs which humans so loved, names which identified themselves to the rumor mill but weren’t noted down anywhere, whether in an official format or not. 

There was a recording, back in the archives, of Starscream slapping an Eradicon in a moment of high dudgeon. A quick search of the work roster for Starscream’s entourage that day had yielded that Eradicon’s identity: a flier serving in Starscream’s wing, Serial Number D-MX348 – known to his friends as Steve.

Soundwave wasn’t as accustomed to secret plotting as, say, Starscream was, but he was beginning to wonder if he didn’t have the makings of a plausible plan here.


	2. In which Knock Out tries to play with the big boys, and the hero of our little tale makes an appearance.

“You’ve been into my medical files,” Knock Out announced, sashaying across the bridge with a sing-song lilt in his crisp tenor voice. 

He was alone with Soundwave, thankfully: Starscream had retired early, citing a complete lack of interest in the proceedings, to which Megatron had as usual taken offense and dragged the Seeker kicking and shrieking to the door, where he was unceremoniously tossed into the hall. Megatron had made as if to follow and beat the lesson in, but, counter to all prior experience, an airy hum from Knock Out had stopped him in his tracks. Engine revving in high temper, the warlord had ordered Soundwave to up his surveillance on Starscream before retreating to his own quarters with a note in his fields which might have been called sulky were he any other mech.

Soundwave ignored Knock Out. Like Starscream, the medic thrived on attention and the perception of power, orchestrating all his interactions with his fellow Decepticons to highlight his own importance. The best way to deal with him was to pay no attention to him at all, thus depriving him of both. 

Knock Out continued, because mecha like him never gave up that easily. “I wonder what our mysterious communications officer would be wanting Starscream’s maintenance charts for, hm? Particularly spark resonance data; that’s _private._ ”

Soundwave, who had free rein from Megatron when it came to the data he was allowed to monitor, kept working. 

“I wonder if this might have anything to do with the recent set of orders you’ve received from Lord Megatron,” the medic asked the air, half-folding his arms and attempting to look innocently thoughtful. He didn’t have the features for ‘innocent’ in any shape or form, however, and the short-wave jitters in his tightly-worn EM field gave the lie up.

Laserbeak had, up until then, been perched on a high bulwark, up in the shadows and out of sight. She fired up her engines faster than she should have, producing a rapid-fire chattering shriek as she leapt into flight, zooming past Knock Out just close enough to make him flinch away. Soundwave turned, meeting her at just the right angle to make her docking flawless.

Knock Out gave Soundwave’s chest a dubious look. “Sometimes I think you do that deliberately.” It was Soundwave he was talking to; like most Decepticons, Knock Out didn’t seem to realise that Laserbeak was her own person despite her simple dronelike cassette frame. Nevertheless, it suited both Soundwave and Laserbeak to neglect to clear up the misunderstanding. Drones, or those who were thought to be drones, didn’t make good hostages.

Laserbeak’s presence through the symbiote-bond chirred with the mental equivalent of a raspberry. She was in on the plan; had even helped with several of the finer details. 

So, it seemed, was Knock Out. 

He would have had to be told sooner or later, Soundwave reasoned. His plan had a sixty-three percent chance of success without the medic’s help—it would be many orders of magnitude easier with it. He sent the medic a private text-code ping on the highest-level frequency they both had access to: _// Your assistance: required. //_

Knock Out straightened, his field flaring momentarily. “Say please and I’ll consider it,” he said, but it had the ring of an automatic reaction. The medic was thinking intently enough that even with his telepathy mods on standby, Soundwave could see in his field the basics of what was going through his processor. Large amounts of it were healthy caution—Knock Out was, after all, smart enough to have survived for millennia as a Decepticon officer. The rest was coloured with amusement, suspicion, and greed. “What’s in it for me?”

Amusement and suspicion he could work with. Greed, on the other hand, had no place in Soundwave’s tolerance.

Starscream’s voice played back through Soundwave’s visor, still eminently recognisable through the electronic reverb of the filter. _“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”_

Knock Out went very, very still. Soundwave switched the recording, substituting one of Knock Out himself, and saw the medic’s field give a tiny, barely perceptible shiver. _// Your assistance, required //_ he repeated—and this time, the medic’s only response was a well-disguised flash of terror.

“Blackmail, hmm?” Knock Out said flatly, cupping a servo under one elbow and absently tapping the curve of his shoulder with the other. His field pulled in tight, defensively furling as close to his plating as it would go. “Tell me again why Starscream is our second-in-command, not you.”

 _// Inconsequential, //_ Soundwave sent. As much as the Air Commander bothered him personally, he could admit that the Seeker was the better commander. Soundwave was better off left to his own devices with a small crew to direct—which he had, in his position as head of Security and Communications. It suited him as well as any function he’d had over the vorns. _// Sparklings, required by Lord Megatron. Soundwave, required to produce them with Starscream. Soundwave, unwilling. //_

“Seriously?” Knock Out’s optics went wide, startled into a grin. “You must be the only mech on this ship who wouldn’t tap that.”

_// Hypothesis unwelcome. Your assistance, needed. //_

“Very well,” the medic waved a flippant servo. “I admit it would be fun to see the fragger brought low and not be punished for it. What will you need from me?”

 _// Silence only. //_ Soundwave quickly encrypted the file which held the basics of his plan with an old medical code, editing out the details which did not concern the medic and hoping that Knock Out, a Science Academy dropout, actually knew how to decode it. _// Medical expertise, helpful. Meddling, unnecessary. //_

He did, apparently. “I see,” he nodded, smirking his approval. “Simple and elegant. I like it.”

Mission accomplished. 

Soundwave turned back to his workstation, extending his cables and immersing himself with relief in the steady flow of the data streams. It took Knock Out a klik to realise he’d been dismissed; when he finally did, Soundwave could almost feel him roll his optics. The medic stalked off, dry disdain crackling from his field.

Laserbeak gave a quiet chirr from her dock on Soundwave’s chest, systems quickly ticking down into recharge. She had remained awake throughout the conversation, curious for the sheer sake of being curious. She _liked_ Starscream, for reasons unknown, and took great joy in being around the Seeker despite the fact that he treated her as an extension of Soundwave and therefore regarded her with shallow resentment at best. _He’s pretty,_ she had said once. Soundwave hadn’t asked again.

The plan so far hinged on two points: Starscream’s approaching synchronicity peak, and Knock Out’s medical assistance. 

The protocols which came with the cycle’s peak made needy messes out of most mechs. During the cycle, the extra electrical activity built up in systems and circuits, causing physical discomfort and a rise in body temperature which gave the peak the crude nickname of ‘heat’. Prolonged exposure to this sort of stress could have some serious deleterious effects, but fortunately the synchronicity protocols came with a built-in solution – a near-irresistible urge to throw oneself into the berth with whoever happened to be closest at the time. Interfacing worked out the overcharge in ways which were generally agreeable to all parties involved, and provided you took the necessary precautions the biological goal behind the heat could be avoided. (Thank Primus, otherwise the Nemesis would be neck-deep in sparklings. Soundwave had done the calculations.)

Seekers in particular had a reputation for taking it to extremes. Their systems became so primed for reproduction that it wasn’t uncommon for them to suffer swarms of minor glitches as their sparks generated far too much energy for their delicate flight systems to take. The urge to interface was thus all-encompassing; stories of generative Seekers had been legendary in the Golden Age. Other symptoms were many and varied: memory loss was a common complaint, one which was common knowledge amongst the Decepticon forces thanks to their large proportion of Seekers. Soundwave intended to take full advantage of it. After all, if Starscream himself couldn’t say for sure that he’d never so much as touched Soundwave, then there were no methods short of a full spectral spark scan which could prove his lack of involvement. 

Which was where Knock Out’s assistance became invaluable. 

The medic was the only mech on board the ship with the knowledge—and equipment—to potentially see through the deception. Spark radiation had a tendency to linger in the frame, and repeated merges, such as were necessary to kindle and sustain a newspark, shared plasma between the sparks involved. While the plasma transfers rapidly took on the spectral gradient of the paired spark, the plasmatic degradation occurred at a differing rate and thus the likely parent of the newspark could be divined from those readings.

Theoretically, Soundwave could blame that on the synchronicity-induced urge to interface with as many mechs as possible, but it was much more prudent to simply ensure the situation in which he had to provide such excuses never came up in the first place. What Starscream didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and what Megatron assumed would make him happy. It was a good plan – one where nobody thought they’d lost.

Hence the blackmail. Knock Out was intimately familiar with the punishments for insubordination regularly visited upon Starscream, and therefore highly unlikely to risk bringing that sort of wrath down on his much-beloved paintjob. The good doctor was something of a coward when it came to threats from his own side. Too much time spent with Starscream, Soundwave privately reckoned.

He felt an old broadcast from Megatron go past in the data stream, and was mildly surprised when the juxtaposition of personal devotion to his Lord and the plan to deceive him failed to make his emotional centres go faint with guilt. _Interpretation, perhaps,_ he theorised. Ironing out the weak points in the leader’s schemes was the executive officer’s duty, after all.

These days, there tended to be a few more weak spots in Megatron’s plans than there had once been.

* * *

The first thing D-MX348, known to his friends as Steve, did each morning when he onlined was check his duty roster for the day. It seldom told him what he really wanted, but you had to hope, right?

On this particular morning, he hauled himself out of his lop-level berth, climbed down to the barracks floor and was halfway to the door on his way to get his daily ration of energon before he realised with a jubilant whoop that Primus had at last answered his prayers. Josh and Ryan at the shift station gave him a funny look as his EM field flashed vibrant and his fist pumped in the air, shoulder winglets flicking upwards with unrestrained excitement. If he’d had a mouth underneath his mask, it would have been wide open in the silliest grin known to dronekind.

Thus, when he got his field under control again and loped out into the corridor, he failed to notice Laserbeak swooping purposefully after him.

When he arrived, the rec room was packed despite the early hour, full of the previous shift’s workers winding down after a hard day in the mines. The Autobots had been unusually active lately; there was more than the usual amount of soldier-guards mixed in with the dusty miners. Most everyone was grouped together by work squad, chatting, joking with each other, fields reaching out and overlapping in friendly contact. They were his friends, his family, and the sight wouldn’t have failed to make him smile even if he hadn’t had the good news yet. 

Eric, a Seekerkin whose bunk was directly below Steve’s, reached out a hand towards him, his field flickering entreatingly while the others in the group pinged helloes. “Hey, Steve, you’ve been missing out on all the fun lately!” he drawled, his sing-song baritone voice mock-recriminating. “Gonna stay for a while today? Marco can tell you aaaalll about how he got his aft kicked by that little yellow Autodork yesterday.”

Steve pinged a negative on a wide band frequency, letting his field flare with a good-natured apology. “Sorry! I don’t want to be late for my shift.”

“Yeah, we all saw you’re in Commander Starscream’s entourage again,” the miner designated Marco by the rumour mill snickered, prompting a chorus of mixed catcalls and wishes of good luck from every drone within audial distance. Steve shook his head, engine chuffing half in embarrassment and half in thanks as he moved onwards in search of the energon dispenser.

It would have been nice to stay for a while, catch up with the gossip and relax, but today, Steve had bigger glitchmice to fry. He collected his rations, pumped the energon into his tank, and headed off for the upper levels, a jubilant bounce in his step.

He checked his duty roster again, just to make sure. Then he checked his chronometer, and quickened his pace. Commander Starscream did not like tardiness, and the last thing Steve wanted to do was let his commander down. 

Partly because it meant imminent pain would be headed his way, admittedly. Starscream was a demanding taskmaster, requiring nothing less than one hundred percent efficiency and effort from his assistants. 

He was very intense about it, Steve thought dreamily. The squishies had a word for it – ‘diva’ – though Starscream was much more beautiful than any of the fleshie divas, elegant and powerful in equal measure. He could be abrasive sometimes—Steve would admit that much—but the same could be said of any of the officers, really.

Soundwave, for instance. The lithe blue mech rounded the corner ahead of Steve, visor blank and steps almost silent, preternaturally thin arms held docilely by his sides. Almost nothing was known about him — so naturally the hallways were filled with rumors and speculation, like whether that visor was his real face or not. He gave Steve the creeps.

_Think nice thoughts, Steve. Like Commander Starscream. Flying! He’s so skilled… think his wings are as sensitive as Eric’s?_

Almost imperceptibly, he felt Soundwave’s usually inert EM field twitch.

* * *

Soundwave carefully monitored the Eradicon’s thought processes from the moment they came into range. They were many and varied, and most if not all featured some reference to Starscream. The Eradicon apparently was no stranger to working with the Air Commander, tried and tested on his rages, his tantrums, his plots and unceasing need to be in complete control no matter what the situation. Yet, for whatever reason, he still seemed to hold a fair amount of affection for Starscream. 

Busy mulling over the Eradicon’s thoughts, Soundwave turned the corner and came face to visor with his quarry. The Eradicon’s thoughts immediately shifted—a hurried focus on Soundwave, nervy and suspicious. Then the Starscream memories returned full force—a ploy to avoid thinking incriminating thoughts, Soundwave noted with mild amusement—shot through with a curious line of thought based not in memory, but fantasy. Soundwave followed it—then wished he hadn’t.

Hypothesis confirmed, at any rate. He decisively erased the image from his memory files, returning Laserbeak’s surreptitious anchor-ping as she flew past, a quiet shadow in the Eradicon’s wake. 

Now, for the difficult task—Starscream.

* * *


	3. In which Starscream sits up and takes notice, and Soundwave has a happy.

Primus seemed to have at last taken notice of Steve. Over the course of the next twenty shifts, he spent four of them as part of Starscream’s gang of assistants-cum-lab rats. People started giving him awed looks.

“I think someone wants you to get laid,” Eric theorised one night at the miners’ table in the rec room. “He’s finally gotten tired of watching you bumble around after the Commander like a lovestruck turbopup. And scrap, ‘cause that was funny.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in Primus,” Ryan interjected. Eric’s engine sputtered; a derisive laugh by any drone’s standards.

“I don’t mean Primus! One of the officers, I’ll bet. Pit, maybe it’s Starscream himself. Maybe Steve’s gone and impressed him with his dedication to Starscream’s work.” 

“It’s Soundwave who does the rosters, glitch!” Marco pointed out, gesturing wildly with a mostly-empty cube of energon. Through some witchcraft he managed not to spill any of it; the miners were exceptionally careful with the energon their work produced. “Have you ever even heard of him taking an interest in anything?”

Megan, a miner who had acquired his name from a nurse on one of the third shift’s favourite hospital dramas and tended to be quite defensive about it, interjected with: “Except for Starscream’s plots, you mean?”

The two grounders sitting on his either side reached out and dope-slapped him, one after the other. The first managed a second slap before Megan got his own back with a well-placed claw to the intakes.

“Sshhhh!” Eric held a clawed finger to his mask as Megan’s unfortunate victim doubled over, nodding pointedly towards the star of the show. “Stop bickering, sparklings—and you, Megan! Don’t spoil his dreams, you cold-sparked slagger! What do the squishies call it? Let him have a honeymoon before you crush his spark, eh?”

He needn’t have bothered, even if he’d been at all serious about it. Marco leant across the table, tapping Steve’s mask with a careful clawtip. “I think he’s out of it, guys. Deeeeeeeeep in Fantasy City.” 

“I’d hate to imagine what he’s thinking of,” the hapless Megan put in, immediately becoming the object of several blank stares. “Well?” he added defensively. “Whatever it is it’s gotta be hardcore if he can ignore you glitches for that long!”

“Put that way, I see what you mean,” Eric considered, resting his pointy chin in his hands and gazing solicitously at Steve. “I suppose I can’t blame him. It’s been, what? Nearly twenty vorns he’s been moping after the Commander. If I was that dedicated to an infatuation, I’d be milking it for all it was worth too.”

There was a short pause. Drones all around the table shifted.

“Reckon we need to intervene?” suggested a flier two places down from Megan. Young, calm, and very good-looking, he’d taken the name Kate from Megan’s selfsame medical drama. Unlike Megan, he wore the name with an unflappable dignity. “Not obviously so, of course—but, um, just maybe in ways that make Steve look good.”

Eric waved a dainty hand for silence. “You make it sound as though you have no confidence in him being able to impress Starscream on his own.”

Kate was suddenly the recipient of more than a few dirty looks. Practically every drone in the ship had a soft spot for the easygoing, hopelessly infatuated flier, even those who had never met him in person. Those who had—such as every mech currently at the table—were decidedly more emphatic about it.

Undeterred, Kate forged bravely onwards. “Hello—it’s _Starscream_ we’re talking about here. I’m just being realistic. He’s a Seeker. _Megatron_ would have difficulty presenting himself as a suitable mate, let alone a mere drone.” He shrugged, sitting back and dropping his hands into his lap. “We don’t have to really do anything that affects him, even, just make him look good in comparison.”

“’Operation: Get Steve Laid’!” Marco said, a smirk plain in his voice even though he had no mouth with which to smirk in the first place. It was a talent of his, although it tended to make people want to shoot him. “Sounds kinda stupid if you ask me.”

Eric opened his lateral vents wide and sighed gustily. “I hate to agree with the village idiot, Kate, but he’s right. We just have to have faith in Steve.”

“And hope the Screamer pays attention for once,” Megan added.

For once, no-one bothered to reprimand him. He spoke the truth, after all.

* * *

Ensconced in the safe darkness of the main security hub, Soundwave multitasked.

There was a minor brawl going on down in the rec room, a couple of miners fresh from the prospecting digs in South America engaging in a primarily exhaustion-fueled war of words and weak blows. The miners coming off shifts tended to be the worst troublemakers at any one time—Soundwave suspected it was largely the fault of coming from the monotony and constant danger of working underground on this unfortunately tectonic planet. They’d lost seventeen in an earthquake several months previously, and coupled with the increasing difficulty of finding accessible energon veins memory of it had morale at a deep low. 

Knock Out and Breakdown were engaging in their favourite pastime - buffing paint scrapes and tiny dents out of Knock Out’s usually flawless finish. That they were doing this on Soundwave’s berth instead of either of theirs was only cause for a moment’s pause: Soundwave had caught them in Starscream’s quarters from a variety of angles, and even once in Megatron’s suite. Soundwave hardly ever used his berth anyway, so he supposed they were welcome to it.

Laserbeak’s feed was his current priority. The tiny flyer was perched in the shadow of the massive I-beam which ran across the ceiling in Starscream’s primary laboratory, looking down over benches covered in experiments and complicated-looking tools. She was well-hidden; Starscream was the undisputed king of the labs and he did not take kindly to any trespassing on his turf.

The shift was on its last legs: Starscream was absorbed in an experimental energon refinery, the Eradicon ready at his shoulder, holding a selection of small tools.

This was looking promising. 

Soundwave paused the feed as Starscream straightened, turning back to the workbench. Laserbeak obligingly zoomed in on Starscream’s face, refocusing until the expression on the Seeker’s faceplates was crystal-clear.

Soundwave knew that look. It was the look Starscream got whenever he’d just come up with a big idea, or a ‘foolproof’ plan to undermine Lord Megatron’s authority. Sometimes he wore it when he’d snagged himself a berth partner who was particularly skilled (and Soundwave wished he didn’t know that, but such were the hazards of being the local security director). Narrowed optics glowed intensely, mouth curved in a secretive smirk. The Seeker’s wings were hiked up high and splayed out, a display of interest plain as the day so long as you read fluent Wing.

Which, unfortunately for Starscream, none of the Eradicons did. Their wings flattened to their backs and shoulders in root-mode, a design quirk of Shockwave’s which made them much less likely to suffer crippling blows in root-mode battles, but also robbed them of the wing language common to the great majority of light flightframes. 

_Hmm._ Soundwave wondered idly if it was likely to cause problems. Unlikely, he decided in the end—Starscream wasn’t that patient. Neither were heat cycles, and Knock Out’s notes these days showed the Seeker rapidly approaching full-heat spark synchronicity. As long as the Eradicon kept Starscream’s focus on him, he’d be getting jumped by a ferociously needy lapful of Seeker any orn now.

Starscream busied himself at the workbench, but Laserbeak’s feed caught the way his optics tracked the Eradicon around the room, never once losing sight of it among the others. 

It would be nice, just this once, to say: “Aha!”

* * *

Steve stood, arms full of sample vials and empty containers, in front of a bank of screens flashing blueprints and error messages, and wondered what he’d done to deserve this. 

The humans had a thing—karma. Had he done a few really good deeds in a past life? Depending on what they said about the Well of All Sparks it was eminently possible. Or perhaps Primus had simply decided that Steve was his hero of the moment. Steve could live with either explanation, so long as this strange honeymoon period never ended.

His private alarm flashed in a corner of his HUD; his shift was ending. Steve carefully stacked the empty containers in front of the inventory screen which Starscream had gone to great lengths to point out at the beginning of the shift, separating the clean ones from those with crystallised energon sitting in the bottom. The sample vials went in the chiller underneath the bench.

That done, Steve straightened, realising as he did that he could no longer hear the short-wave chatter of the drones he’d been sharing the shift with. His chronometer read nearly a full breem into his off-shift.

He turned around, intending to head for the door before the automated locking mechanism shut him in here for the night—and came very close to walking straight into Starscream.

The Air Commander stood with one hand braced on his hip, wings up and spread wide, optics focused intently on Steve. They were of a similar height, although Starscream’s wings rose a good bit higher than both their helms. Steve was suddenly all too aware of the difference in their builds—the slim, elegant lines of the Seeker build versus his own functional, slightly blocky frame. Seekerkin though he was, Steve outmassed Starscream by quite a bit.

“Can I help you, sir?” he asked, fighting back the immediate fear that he’d done something he wasn’t supposed to have done. But Starscream didn’t look angry; just vaguely curious.

“You did not flee the room as soon as the shift ended, though according to our dear leader’s rulebook you could have,” the Seeker said, his voice offhandedly acerbic. Starscream had an… _interesting_ voice, incredibly expressive in its tonal range and slightly unorthodox in the way it had a tendency to grate and crack mid-word. Unlike the rest of the Seeker, it was in no way conventionally attractive.

Steve kind of liked it, though.

“I had some things to finish, sir,” he explained, stepping aside so Starscream could see the instruments on the bench. “I ran out of time to sterilise the containers, so I left a note for the next shift on the screen.”

“Dedication to your work. I like that in a mech.” Starscream’s optics narrowed, a slow smile spreading across his lips. “What is your name, soldier?” 

“D-MX34—“ Steve began, dutifully reciting his batch number. Starscream waved an irritable servo, and Steve cut himself off so fast his vocaliser squeaked.

“Numbers alone tell me nothing of value.” The Seeker took an elegant step closer, scowling mightily. Steve tried not to notice the plates over his abdomen adjusting for each step. “I know you lot have names you call yourselves when you think we officers aren’t looking—now, do not insult me by pretending I don’t. Must I demand it from you?”

Coming from Starscream, that was practically a pretty please with a rust stick on top. _Well now, you’ve been very useful to me lately, I shall deign to notice you as a reward. Have a virtual pat on the back; keep up the good work._

Steve felt a flush of excitement rising in his field. “I’m Steve, sir.”

Starscream cocked his head slightly, frowning. “A fleshie name?”

“It was a joke at first, sir. Eric—ah, that is, my squad captain—picked it up from a sitcom. Unfortunate romantic lead, sir.” Steve wondered if Starscream had any clue what a romantic lead was. Or a sitcom. Hopefully not, or he’d have to go die in a hole somewhere. It was one thing having your squadmates know the embarrassing details of your history—having your superior officer and not-so-secret object of your affections knowing the same things; that was a whole other container of cyberworms. “It… stuck, sir.”

“My title is ‘Commander’—use it.” Starscream ordered offhandedly. The frown morphed into a thoughtful look, and then he pinned Steve with an expression of such intent judgement he felt as though he was being picked apart, part by part, weighed and evaluated as he’d never been before in his entire life. “Steve… hmm, yes, I see. Very fitting.” Starscream chuckled lowly, placing the sample jar down on the bench and straightening luxuriously. Steve did not fail to notice the way his wings proudly perked upwards, the confident jut of his hip. “I shall require you here at 14:30 tomorrow to assist me. I trust you will not let me down?”

14:30… that was in the middle of his off-shift. It’d be worth it, though.

“Yes, Commander,” he said promptly, saluting for emphasis. Starscream smirked, watching with a covetous look in his optics.

“Excellent.” He waved a delicate hand, claws clicking quietly against each other as they moved. “Dismissed.”


	4. In which Starscream takes his sweet time, and Soundwave makes a progress report.

Time moved on. 

Three of the little blue planet’s lunar cycles went by, a tedious three months by anyone’s standards. The Autobots regrouped to lick their wounds after a slew of sting attacks on mining sites across the North American continent, and hadn’t been seen since. Megatron was of the opinion that they were gathering their resources for another assault on the Nemesis itself, but that each and every one of them had been so covered by residual dings and scrapes that it was plainly visible in the security footage recovered after the attacks had given Soundwave a different theory. It was likely that the Autobots had simply run themselves into the ground; no matter how many energon signatures they picked up, fighting on such ill-kept frames was a death sentence. Soundwave was surprised the Prime had let them go on as long as he had. 

Well. It certainly wasn’t his concern. Prime could get his mechs all killed if he liked; fewer Autobots to fight could only be a good thing.

No matter the cause of it, the entire Nemesis was relaxing in the quiet. This was a good thing for troop morale and health; not quite so much for Soundwave’s sanity.

Soundwave appreciated a bit of tedium as much as the next mech. He’d experienced plenty of excitement in his youth, one way or another, and as far as he was concerned it had been enough for one life. The war was all the action he needed – too much of it, occasionally, but he shared Megatron’s appreciation for the rewards of effort and the image of a new Cybertron at the end of it was what kept him going despite it.

The quiet itself was not the problem. No, that was a two-glyph word, beginning with ‘Star’ and ending with ‘Scream’.

The Seeker had found two of the spy cameras in his quarters. Soundwave had been treated to an earsplitting rant in airs of ‘sawblade scraping down a corrugated sheet of zinc’ complete with windmill gestures and optics that looked to be attempting to burn a hole through the camera lens, transmit through the digital receiver and straight into the middle of Soundwave’s visor by pure force of malice. Starscream had then destroyed the bug, and torn his quarters apart looking for more. When he’d found another, Soundwave’s fate had been sealed; Starscream had stomped through the Nemesis parting crowds of Vehicons before him with all the wrath of an angry asteroid speeding down a shipping lane, recruited the help of the hapless Breakdown to forcibly open the door to Soundwave’s cubby (unfortunately within his rights as Decepticon Second-In-Command), whereupon Soundwave was treated to a repeat performance.

That was when Megatron, who’d later watched the whole thing on Soundwave’s own surveillance tapes, arrived. Instead of rescuing Soundwave, he’d watched as Starscream raged on without showing any signs of fatigue, the strangest smile tugging at his scarred mouth.

He’d even chuckled quietly at a couple of parts. That had stung, just a little bit.

Since then, the ever-present cold war between Soundwave and the Air Commander had flared up with a vengeance. Soundwave kept expecting Megatron to realise what danger this put his plan in – one could hardly expect two individuals in such interpersonal strife to kindle sparklings together – but it never came.

He figured out eventually that Megatron was putting it down to an extended lovers’ spat. Relief warred with insult, and won, but it was a close-fought battle.

Fortunately, Soundwave and Starscream did not share much beyond a tentative grasp of command. Avoiding one another was a perfectly viable course of action, and if it means Soundwave had to skip a few high command meetings, then so be it. Unlike Starscream, he had a legitimate excuse.

The four surviving cameras in Starscream’s quarters continued to record the Seeker’s steady march towards synchronization. Perhaps fortunately, one of the deceased cameras had been the one above the berth, but Soundwave still had a listening device lodged in a cranny underneath it. Self-service sessions grew ever more frequent, and somehow being forced to listen through those was even worse without visuals. Soundwave had previously never considered the possibility that a voice which produced shrieks capable of cutting fibreglass might sound halfway decent on the cusp of overload. Without the visuals, association protocols which had henceforth firmly tied the Seeker to his screech failed to activate.

The effect, while not arousing per se, certainly left Soundwave feeling somewhat discomfited afterwards. ‘Starscream’ and ‘sexy’ just did not compute.

Something on the top bank of vidscreens flickered. Soundwave focused for a nanoklik, but it was just a cleaner drone changing hose attachments.

He ran a personnel check out of pure boredom. Dreadwing, newly arrived from stellar neighborhoods afar, sat in the officer’s mess, broodily staring down a cube of mid-grade. Breakdown was refereeing a game of some inane human sport down on the lower decks, Eradicons mobbing around him. Knock Out was examining a patient; Starscream was absent, out on a mission with his little drone paramour. 

Perhaps it was a little early to be calling the Eradicon that. Things had been looking very promising for a while, but there had been no new advancements in close to two months. Starscream had had the drone permanently assigned to his lab crew… and there it had, for all intents and purposes, ended. 

Some days Soundwave just wanted to grab those mechs by the wings and shove them into each other’s berths. Things would be so much easier if everyone would do what he wanted them to do.

A hydraulic hiss, and the cubby door opened. It ground to a halt just short of wide enough to let Lord Megatron in, its sliding mechanism derailed. Megatron gave it a solid thump, which failed to help at all.

Soundwave ducked out into the hallway, sending a VHF ping as both greeting and inquiry. // _Presence, unexpected. Assistance required?_ //

Megatron fixed him with a baleful red glare. Soundwave knew that look – one of a warlord who has recently had an audio-full of Seeker screech.

“If you can find your way into Starscream’s quarters over his off-shift and find a way to sabotage his vocaliser, so much the better,” he grumbled. “I find myself growing weary of this state of affairs. How much longer do you plan to take?”

Soundwave would never touch his Lord’s mind, but this late in their acquaintance he didn’t need to. Despite the cryptic wording of the question it was immediately understood.

// _Further time, required. Starscream’s synchronicity peak could prove useful. Offspring likely from a mating at such time._ //

Megatron made a chuff of disgust, his upper lip lifting in the beginnings of a snarl. “Very well. Whatever you do, Soundwave, do it quickly. Starscream needs to be kept in line, lest he _forget his place._ ”

// _Understood, Lord Megatron._ //

Soundwave ducked his helm in the slightest of bows as his Lord strode away. 

Megatron’s views on discipline – Starscream’s discipline in particular – were well known. But since in order to carry to term, the carrier needed to be in peak physical health or as close to it as it was possible to get when one has a Master such as Megatron, he had been forced to revise them lest he throw the entire plan into jeopardy. 

Starscream’s behaviour hadn’t improved an iota, but neither had it become markedly worse. This was interesting, and merited further thought.

But not now. Soundwave had work to do. 

And since this was a good day, it did not involve Starscream in the slightest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a filler chapter, but we get porn next! Yey! :D


	5. In which Steve gets lucky. At long last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I told you guys it was getting worked on! :D
> 
> Also, kudos to you if you recognise where the three new Eradicons' names come from. Two of them should be fairly easy; the other one... might not be XD

Steve noticed the big green Autobot taking aim in the middle of a divebomb maneuver. Ailerons straining, wing joints screeching, he pulled up and yawed left just in time for the shot to go zapping harmlessly past, so close the atmospheric sensors under his tail measured the heat of its passing.

Others around him were not so lucky. Eric spun off with an engine blown, cursing a blue streak and spilling black smoke from one wing. Bon dropped off the comm network entirely and plummeted earthwards like a stone. Steve didn’t look back to see what had become of her; the dull whoomph and sudden crackle of spark plasma in the atmosphere told him more than enough.

He wheeled low over the treetops, turning, aiming. His weapons were not quite high-powered enough to tear right through the Autobot’s armor and he’d long ago learned the futility of trying it anyway, but here and now Bulkhead was not his primary target. He let loose with the heaviest guns he had, aiming just above and to the right.

Sandstone melted. The cracked outcrop the Wrecker was using for cover crumbled with a chthonic roar.

Steve shot past overhead, the dust cloud swirling in his wake.

The pile of rock and earth shifted. Gunfire exploded outward, the Wrecker following with a stentorian bellow.

:: _Oooo, he's angry now_ :: said Moist. :: _Good one, Steve._ ::

:: _I can't tell if that was sarcasm or not_ :: observed Kate, today's squad captain. :: _Moist, Usagi, to me; Steve, take Ryan and Stacker. Formation Eight._ ::

Steve wheeled left, rising high above the treetops. Two of the six remaining Eradicons rose up to join him. :: _Weapons as high as you can get them_ :: said Steve. :: _No heroics. All we need to do is pin him down._ ::

:: _Roger!_ :: said Stacker.

:: _Who in Primus' forsaken tailpipe is Roger?_ :: said a new voice. :: _And you need not bother, the Autobots have retreated._ ::

:: _He's still there, sir_ :: said Kate. The Wrecker had hardly moved, standing with his back to the rock pile and aiming steadfastly at the circling Eradicons. :: _We could take him prisoner._ ::

:: _He won't be in about three, two..._ :: said Starscream. :: _Do not argue with me._ ::

Right on cue, the glowing green portal of a space bridge gate appeared next to the Wrecker. He ran for it, still aiming. Someone fired at him, a last hurrah as the portal swallowed him up.

:: _Moist!_ :: Kate squawked, identifying the culprit as the squad's resident gung-ho newspark. :: _Have some discipline, why don't you!_ ::

Starscream's sleek silver altmode shot into view. He roared past just beneath Steve's wings, so close that Steve yawed and fought for control in the wash of displaced air.

A rush of irrational excitement bloomed in his spark.

:: _Hm, one can hardly blame the child for being eager to do his job_ :: the Seeker said. :: _Still, far be it from me to encourage disobedience to one's superiors._ ::

Steve heard the echoes of a disbelieving snort on a private line from Kate, most uncharacteristic. :: _In that case, sir, what punishment might you suggest?_ ::

Starscream was generally happy to have his authority deferred to, but today it seemed was one of the rare exceptions. :: _Oh, I rather think that you as his direct superior ought to make that decision. Return to the ship._ ::

:: _Yes sir_ :: the Eradicons chorused.

Steve turned to leave with the others, but Starscream shot past underneath him again, forcing him out of his flight path.

:: _Not you_ :: said the Air Commander. :: _I have something else in mind for you._ ::

Steve flew in a wide loop, confused. :: _Commander?_ ::

:: _Down_ :: ordered Starscream.

:: _What's going on?_ :: Kate asked on Steve's personal line.

:: _I don't know yet_ :: said Steve. :: Commander Starscream says he wants me for something. Hasn't told me what, yet. ::

There was a momentary silence. :: _Have fun with that_ :: Kate eventually said, with an audible smirk. :: _I'll cover for you with Snape._ ::

:: _Shaddup, Kate._ :: Steve shut off his comm before his friend could reply, and dived.

Down, down below the canopy, in amongst the massive tree trunks. Steve had never been to Cybertron, but he'd been sparked on a planet much like this one. He transformed and landed near the edge of a wide glade formed by the felling of an ancient forest giant. Tiny saplings bent underfoot.

Starscream followed him down, transforming in midair and alighting neatly on a jumble of rocks on the other side of the skeletal trunk.

“Doubtless you will be wondering what I require of you,” he said aloud, his voice dropping into a silken purr.

Steve couldn't deny that. “I'll do it, whatever it is, sir,” he said.

Oh, that voice did interesting things to his neural net. Programs were activating deep in his processor, programs he hadn't known he possessed. His wings fluttered against his back, moving in patterns deeply instinctual.

Starscream smiled. His wings hiked up, fluttered from side to side. He stalked closer, stepping over the fallen tree with all the incredible grace of a full-coded Seeker. His hips swayed with each step, enticing. His EM field shuddered with heat and pressure, little blooms of agitation escaping his tightly-furled control.

Self-preservation protocols screamed at Steve to back down, submit to his Commander’s obvious authority, but the new programs blooming in his core processor insisted with equal vigor that he stand his ground. The winglets on his shoulders strained; his neck cables ached with the effort of holding his head so high. Charge cycled through his systems, his spark whirling in excitement. The electricity pooled low in his abdomen, his interface net roaring to life. He met the storm of Starscream’s field and stood strong against it, parting the flood.

Starscream smiled, deep and predatory.

“Oh yes,” he said. “You’ll do nicely.”

* * *

Back on the Nemesis, Soundwave observed the returning drones through the flight deck cameras. Occasionally he hacked their personal comm frequencies, but this yielded very little that he did not already know.

Truth be told, it was an act of boredom. Anywhere else he might have had Autobot transmissions to intercept, spies to interrogate. But this planet was very much dominated by Decepticons – the few Autobots under the Prime's command did not have the technology to send highly-encrypted messages, even if they'd had someone to send them to in the first place.

The humans were a different story, but even as ridiculously quickly-developing as their technology was, they still posed little sport. He'd hacked the United States' Defense network twice already; the first time to see how long it would take, and the second, to watch them panic about the intrusion. It had been amusing, for about half an hour.

And so he'd turned to eavesdropping on the drones.

Not that this was anything new. As the Nemesis' Security Chief, it had been part of his job to do so for a long time now. Megatron expected Soundwave to know what the crew were thinking, and to do that he had to listen to what they were saying. What he was doing now was scarcely any different, except that he was primarily doing it for entertainment.

The last stragglers flew in under the covered dock and disappeared into the bowels of the ship. Soundwave vaguely recognised one of them – K-JB724, known as Kate, and up for a promotion soon although he didn't know it yet. According to the roster, leader of a squad of six, including the famous Steve.

Something niggled at the back of his processor. He rewound the last few seconds of footage and watched it through again.

Only four Eradicons followed Kate in off the deck.

Soundwave checked the declared injuries list for the day's engagement. Kate's squad had had only one injury severe enough to force the drone involved to return via space bridge. So where was the sixth drone?

He patched himself into the squad's comm signal.

:: _I'm jelly_ :: said one – callsign Usagi, light gunner. :: _Wobble, wobble._ ::

:: _If one of us had to get laid today, I wish it coulda been me_ :: another put in, somewhat less cryptically. :: _Best of luck to him, of course. He's gonna need it._ ::

:: _You know_ :: Kate observed, :: _I did think that Starscream felt a little... off. I wasn't quite close enough to feel him for sure – Stacker, Ryan, you two were closer._ ::

Callsign Stacker, heavy bomber, replied. :: _I think so, but I haven't the foggiest what was up with him. Never felt that before._ ::

Suspicion dawned on Soundwave. He kept listening.

:: _I still don't know what he sees in Steve_ :: said Usagi. :: _I mean, he's cute and all, but..._ ::

:: _Yeah, you like the weird ones_ :: cackled someone with the callsign 'Moist'. :: _Soundwave, nah nah!_ ::

:: _Shut up and go to the brig, Moist_ :: said Kate :: _Usagi's questionable taste in mecha aside, I want you to do some serious thinking about your part in this squad while you're in there._ ::

Soundwave withdrew. Glee danced through his spark – there were few things in life better than seeing a long-nurtured plan come to fruition.

He brought up the shipwide personnel tracker, and focused in on the area of Suberia that the Nemesis had just left. Steve and Starscream's icons blinked together on the map, almost on top of each other.

A pity he couldn't observe the proceedings, but perhaps that was for the best. He gave the happy couple his best wishes, and moved into the final stage of the plan.

* * *

Starscream leapt. _Flew._

He hit Steve at chest height, and they went over backwards. Steve ended up on his back, Starscream straddling his waist. His hands went automatically to Starscream's waist.

The Seeker was burning up underneath his armour. Steve's optics widened behind his visor.

“You see,” Starscream began, looming over him, “there's a certain bit of coding in most mecha. I say 'most', because you drones don't have it. I suppose Shockwave didn't think that incapacitating half his army at certain times of the vorn was an advisable course of action. A pity, that, because now I have to give you a little biology lesson before we can continue.”

“Biology?” asked Steve, managing to keep himself from squeaking. If this was going where he thought it was going, then he entirely agreed with Starscream's assessment. A pity indeed!

“Exactly,” purred Starscream. He laid his servos on Steve's shoulders and slid them down his chest, clawtips prodding between armour plates and teasing the substructure beneath. Warmth rushed through Steve's neural net. He gasped through his auxiliary vents, heatsinks firing up.

Starscream smirked. “We call it 'heat'. Not the most imaginative of names, but—” He took Steve's hands and moved them to the front of his pelvic girdle, and down between his legs. “Feel for yourself how accurate it is.”

Steve turned his hands over, flattening his palm to Starscream's valve panel. Starscream jerked his hips forward against the touch, his thighs trembling.

“You are a fast learner,” he groaned. His valve panel retracted. Warm lubricant splashed Steve's fingers. “'Heat' is a biological imperative. It drives us to mate, and to kindle. From an evolutionary standpoint it is a way of ensuring that the species continues. A hackish and inelegant solution to a problem we never encountered, but such is unintelligent design.”

He shuffled backwards along Steve's body. Long claws tapped Steve’s array panel. “Open for me.”

Autonomics slid his panelling aside almost before the short sentence was finished. Steve’s valve slicked, charge thrumming through his spike as it pressurized.

Starscream lifted himself and knelt for a moment, his servo wrapping around Steve's hard length. Steve's backstruts arched, pushing it through Starscream's hand. Starscream chuckled breathlessly, guided it to his dripping valve, and brought himself down on it.

Down, all the way to the hilt. Wet heat wrapped around Steve, electricity pulsing, cable walls clenching and releasing rhythmically beneath the soft mesh lining. He offlined his optics and groaned, clutching at Starscream's hips.

“Finally,” Starscream moaned. He adjusted himself, kneeling on the soft loam either side of Steve's prone body, hands on Steve's shoulders, and rocked forward against his spike housing.

A burst of bright electricity surged through their joined arrays. Starscream made a sharp noise of pleasure. He clawed at Steve's chest, uncaring of the damage his sharp talons left.

To be fair, Steve didn't care either – couldn't care, too caught in the bombardment of sensation from his seldom-used spike. As Starscream lifted fractionally off of him, he arched and drove his length into that tight wonderful heat again, the movement entirely instinctual.

Starscream purred and flexed his valve around Steve's spike. “Do that again.”

So Steve did.

Starscream rode his thrusts, gasping and muttering, his wings standing up high from his shoulders. He leaned back, bracing his hands against his thighs and meeting Steve each time with a downward jerk of his hips that he seemed not to be able to control. His optics dimmed and stared off into the forest as overload approached.

A burst of inspiration hit Steve, and he pulled Starscream down bodily into the next thrust. Starscream's voice spiraled up into a register he'd never heard before, high and desperate. Again, and again. He moved one hand inward and rubbed his thumb over Starscream's anterior node cluster.

Overload hit. Starscream lived up to his name.

Steve pushed once, twice, three times more into the clenching, throbbing valve and came. His transfluid, obeying the laws of gravity, seeped out around the base of his spike.

Starscream shook, released of overload's grip, and nearly collapsed. Steve caught him by the waist, and sat up. He rested his helm on his Air Commander's shoulder, and gathered his strength.

“Mmm,” said Starscream tiredly. “You'll do very nicely indeed.”


	6. In which everyone's plans go off without a hitch. Except for Megatron's, but just for once, nobody cares.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much all smut here. Have fun. :B

Two days later, a databurst landed in Steve's inbox. It bore a simple message: a seven-digit code, and a simple message in plain Cybertronian.

_:: I'm waiting. ::_

Steve didn't quite _fly_ through the ship to get to Starscream's quarters, but it was a close-run thing.

He'd had an off-shift since the day of the battle. On the one hand, this had given him plenty of time to think his position over, to decide whether he really wanted to stay involved with whatever plans Starscream had for him (slag yes!) and what he wanted from their association (he still wasn't quite sure about that one). On the other, it meant he had had far too much free time – 'far too much' in this case defined as “every time I run out of things to do I start fantasising about my superior officer.”

And there was so very much to fantasise about! His svelte frame, his narrow, agile wings, his rasping voice, the heat inside him as he rode Steve's spike. He must have replayed the memory file of that encounter in the forest a hundred times by now.

There was a long list of things Steve wanted to do with Starscream, and every single one of them boiled down to a word which started with 'frag' and ended with 'ing'.

He swung around the corner into the officers' corridor. Knock Out and Breakdown lived somewhere along here, as did Soundwave, if he ever recharged at all. Megatron's quarters were elsewhere, high in the stern of the ship. Fortunately for Steve, since the idea of running into the Decepticon warlord on the way to Starscream's quarters was one of the few things that made him want to reconsider the whole idea.

He found Starscream's door, pinged the lock with the entry code. It opened immediately. Steve's spark performed an elated backflip within his chest. The fact that Starscream had entrusted him with the automatic key code was amazing, enthusing, and even if the Air Commander changed the code immediately afterward (as Steve would if it were him, internal security being a rare commodity on the Nemesis) it was still a memory that he would look back and treasure.

There was nobody on the other side of the door.

Steve poked his helm into the room beyond, and cast about for an EM signature. There were residual waves _everywhere_ , warm and somehow giving off the impression of liquid, hot and dripping. The mere echoed sensation made his interface protocols boot up, pressure gathering under his pelvic paneling.

There was a flare from the next room, and a barked command. “Get in here!”

Steve's autonomic protocols obeyed before his higher thought protocols had had time to process the order.

The next room was Starscream's berthroom. Like the outer room, it was practically dripping with the heat of Starscream's spark. Steve had never encountered an EM field so vibrant and receptive.

There was a berth, much bigger than the simple bunks the Eradicons shared. Starscream lay upon it, his upper body propped up on his forearms and his legs sprawled lazily across the rest of the berth. His wings pricked upward at the sight of Steve; his optics, dimmed red, brightened eagerly.

He beckoned Steve forward. “Come, approach me.”

Last chance to turn back. The expression on Starscream's face was predatory and lustful in one. Steve couldn't divine whether he was lover or prey.

He stepped forward anyway.

Again his base coding gave him two conflicting courses of action; make himself small and bend before the onslaught in submission, or hold himself tall. He chose the latter.

Starscream got to his feet, sinuous in desire. There was an arch in his back and a strut to his walk that Steve had never seen before, and he held his wings spread open, almost flat against his shoulders. He placed his hands against Steve's shoulders, claws gliding against the metal, and bent low, his face barely a finger's width from Steve's visor. A claw traced the countours of Steve's mask with sensuous intent.

“You don't have a face underneath that, do you?” His voice dropped another few octaves, sending shivers down Steve's backstrut. “Such a pity.” The claw slid down Steve's neck cabling, sinking beneath the open plating at his collar. Starscream draped himself against Steve's chest. “But I suppose there are alternatives. I have a proposal for you, _Steve_ , one which I think you would enjoy to accept.”

Steve's arms had come up to brace Starscream's weight against himself. Their frames pressed together, chest to chest; he could feel the intoxicating whirl of Starscream's swollen spark beneath his core armour as if the layers of metal were so much paper.

“I think I already know what it is,” he said.

Starscream laughed – not just a chuckle, a full-voiced bark of laughter. He grabbed the sides of Steve's helm and pressed their faces together, his optics blazing, staring into Steve's visor.

“Yes,” he agreed, his voice rising in pitch in a way Steve half thought was deliberate, “I rather thought you might.”

He released Steve's helm and stepped back, pulling him toward the berth. “You see, a mech in heat has certain – hmm, _needs_ , and I see no others on this sorry excuse for a warship with greater qualifications for the role of provider than you. As the Decepticon Air Commander and Winglord of Vos, I will accept nothing less than the best, do you understand?”

Steve pushed his EM field against Starscream's with all the strength and daring he could muster. Starscream's optics took on an almost frantic glint, and he pulled harder on Steve's arm.

“I understand,” Steve managed.

He sat down on the edge of the berth, and suddenly he had a lapful of Air Commander. Starscream straddled him and tugged at his knees, pulling them up onto the berth. Steve scooted back to give them room. The mesh covering of the berth tore beneath their combined weight, but Starscream didn't seem to care. He bore Steve down to the berth and rose on his knees above him, wings pointing to the sky.

Steve took him by the hips, sliding his servos down Starscream's slim thighs. He thumbed the inner seam until Starscream's plating relaxed enough to fit his digits through, then plucked at the neural net beneath. Starscream's legs wobbled. He grabbed Steve's hands and pulled them to his groin.

His panels snapped open at the touch. The heat behind them was incredible, baffling even the very basic sensors in Steve's servos. Lubricant overflowed and ran down the inside of his thighs. His spike pressurised.

Starscream pushed at his hands and rolled his hips. Steve belatedly understood. He pushed one, then two digits into Starscream's valve, rubbing his thumb carefully around the mesh that housed his anterior node. If he had had a mouth, he would have sat up and sucked Starscream's spike, but as it were, he had two hands, and they would do.

Starscream made an inarticulate noise, a sort of pleased sigh. His fans hitched, and his legs wobbled. He caught himself on Steve's shoulders, but not before his weight forced him down further onto Steve's digits. His valve clenched, hot and wet and very ready. Steve took this as an invitation, and slid his third finger into Starscream.

Starscream's vocalisations segued into an intelligible word. “Good, yes, good—” He repeated the word several times, his optics shuttering and face turning upward. Steve watched his reactions carefully, turning his servo and crooking it. He ground the heel of his palm against Starscream's anterior node, and the noise that came out of the Seeker's mouth then was almost a sob.

Starscream's first overload came unexpectedly; his frame seizing up and his valve clenching tight and spasming around Steve's fingers. Transfluid spurted from his spike – not as much as Steve had henceforth learned to associate with spike overloads; perhaps the biological imperative had something to do with it. He caught most of the fluid in his other hand, casting about for somewhere to wipe it. Starscream solved his dilemma in typical fashion, by grabbing his wrist and smearing the transfluid over both their frames.

“Never fear,” he murmured into Steve's audial, “I have private washracks.”

“That's useful,” said Steve, the first thing he could think of.

Starscream laughed again, though this one was slow and greased by his recent overload. “Very much so.”

He clenched his valve, and Steve remembered about his other hand. He withdrew his fingers, gently rubbing the entrance calipers. Starscream hummed, a satisfied sort of noise. He pushed Steve's hand aside, his own long fingers investigating his valve. They spread his external mesh, baring his channel and anterior node, dipped inside him, pulled him open. Steve quickly figured out that he was showing off.

He hooked his servos beneath Starscream's thighs and pushed them apart further. Starscream leant back on one hand, leaving the other at his valve. He fingered himself almost lazily, claws that could and had torn open thick warframe armour guided nimbly into his wet channel, and _Primus_ , but the sounds, slick and sucking, Steve couldn't look away.

The second overload was subtle, a tensing of joints and a faint sigh through stalled fans. Starscream leaned back against Steve's thighs and pulled his fingers out, though he couldn't resist a long slow caress of his slick external components that had Steve's fans roaring and spike attempting to pressurise behind its cover.

Starscream must have heard the _thok_. He lifted his head and smiled wickedly down at Steve, somehow not yet sated.

“I rather think I should get that inside me, don't you?” he asked, with an arch lilt in his voice.

Steve pushed himself up. “Yes,” he said, the syllable sparkfelt.

Starscream went over backwards with the movement, his wings going flat against the berth. Steve had thought the position might be uncomfortable, but Starscream seemed happy to lay there, legs spread around Steve's waist and open valve grinding up against the flat of his spike panel.

Steve gave the panel permission to open. His spike pressurised, nudging between Starscream's mesh folds and up against the base of his own length. Starscream canted his hips upward, catching it against the loosened rim of his channel in a sweet point of contact that made them both groan. Steve shifted back, and Starscream took hold of his spike, guiding the head into his valve. Once they were sure of the angle, Steve took his weight on his knees and thrust inside in one long stroke.

Starscream keened, and wrapped his long long legs around Steve's hips. His EM field thrashed, his hands closing around Steve's wrists, claws digging in. Need flashed through his EM field, raw and open, painfully unguarded. He flexed his claws against Steve's greaves, drawing rough gouges into the metal. The expression on his face was either rapture or agony.

This was what heat was, Steve realised. Not the arousal or the desire but the frightening need, the imperative that forced a mech to open themselves to another in such an intimate way.

Gazing down at Starscream, he resolved in a pang of sympathy to be what Starscream needed.

He rolled his hips, driving his spike through that tantalising wet heat. Starscream arched beneath him, meeting the thrust with a desperate cry.

And so the day went.

\+ + +

The next week, Soundwave and Knock Out reported a resounding success to Megatron.

 


End file.
